Hi, and welcome to SMB Trendwire, the audio conversation for the small business marketplace. My name is Anita Campbell, your co-host for today's conversation. And for today's conversation, we have an absolutely great guest. He is the owner and principal of Birol Growth Consulting, with special expertise in helping companies grow. Andy is a consultant, coach, author and speaker who helps owners grow their business by growing their best and highest use. And that phrase is his trademark, by the way, and Andy is going to explain that for us later. But Andy coaches and consults owners in three major areas: first, accelerating the growth of their company; second, extending the growth of their companies during ownership and management succession; and third, refocusing their company's growth with true intervention services. Ooh. That sounds ominous. But Andy has helped hundreds of business owners in many different industries, so there is a high likelihood that somewhere in our discussion today there'll be a nugget or two that you're going to find very valuable. And you'll be able to learn more about Andy at his website, www.andybirol.com, that's a-n-d-y-b-i-r-o-l.com Ok. With that long introduction, please join me in welcoming Andy Birol. Hi Andy.

Hi Anita, and it's great to be here with you and Steve. It's a lot of fun to be talking amongst the true believers, that is the small business owners, and I my special salutation with Easter around the corner, is Happy Juggling to all those of us with home-based businesses who have kids home and regular day care providers off the hook with Good Friday and Easter coming up and spring break, so, I feel I can share some pain out there with some folks.

Very, very true.

Ok. Well as many of our regular listeners know, Steve and I do these recordings from actually different locations, but in the same general area, which is in the Cleveland, Ohio area, Midwest USA. And actually, Andy is from the general Cleveland area as well, so we're all Ohio folks that's here today. Ok. Well listen, let me get started. I want to introduce my co-host, a well-known expert in the area of small business and also podcasting, our very own Professor Podcast himself, Steve Rucinski. Welcome Steve, get it started.

Thanks Anita. Hello everyone. It's great to be back again, and we're really glad that you could joins us on the SMB Trendwire today, with Andy, and I'm particularly excited about this conversation because I used to be a business growth consultant myself in a past life, and I know both how challenging and rewarding it can be to help a business grow. So maybe to get, start this off, get past the introduction here, Andy, why don't you take a couple minutes and tell us about how, why our business...
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